Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s CEO, provided an interesting example of why we need to understand and focus on consumer needs, instead of being dazzled by product features. Talking about the launch of Instagram Stories, in an interview with Kara Swisher for the Recode Decode podcast, he said: We found that the biggest problem people had with … Continue reading Instagram: one product, two needs

A trip to the gym last weekend resulted in an unexpected market research lesson, which I talked about on Snapchat*: Our usual instructor had been away on the previous weekend, and had been temporarily replaced by somebody else. This one had a very peculiar style – ‘though love’, if you wish. He kept telling … Continue reading Want feedback? Ask your customers… or maybe not

This afternoon, I am delivering a talk at the Oxfordshire branch of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. More details here. In this talk, we put technology to the side and focus, instead, on the social and psychological needs of mobile phone users. This is the slide set for the session. As usual, I would … Continue reading Who wants 4G?

The practice of profiling the different needs and preferences of customers in a market, in order to decide which groups to focus on and how best to serve them, is a well established one in marketing. The process may be broadly divided in three steps, namely: Moira Clark, Paul Fennemore and myself set out to … Continue reading Benefits of using social media in target marketing

My friend Tim Kourdi brought my attention to this presentation by Professor Clayton Christensen about a market research study done with milkshake consumers: If you abstract from the presentation's background and the fact that he keeps describing the act of buying food items as 'hiring' ***seriously, what's going on there?*** this is, actually, a neat … Continue reading The importance of asking ‘why’